"The inclusion of this rider is outrageous. Thirty-plus people are being killed every day by someone using a gun, and House Republicans refuse to even take the most basic steps to help lesson this loss of life," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

"No one can offer one good reason to keep this ban in place. This rider has prohibited experts at the CDC from reaching the causes and best ways to prevent gun violence for nearly 20 years. The omnibus bill gave us a chance to fix that, but once again Republicans refused to simply get out of the way and let our experts do what they do best — conduct research that will save some lives."

"Back in 1998, I took part in cutting off gun violence research dollars at the federal level because of what was considered a misapplication of the dollars by the CDC. I have recently expressed my regrets that we didn't continue that research with the provision that nothing shall be done in this project to infringe the rights of gun ownership as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution in the Second Amendment," Dickey wrote in a recent letter to Thompson.

"Somehow or someway we should slowly but methodically fund such research until a solution is reached. Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution."

House Democrats had made the funding their latest rallying cry — one in a long string of failed efforts to get congressional Republicans to do something, anything, about the regular mass shootings happening in the U.S.

Daily News covers on mass shootings since Sandy Hook

They'd hammered hard on the issue at a fake hearing about gun violence they hosted earlier in December, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had been working hard behind the scenes on the item, saying at an event marking the third anniversary of the shootings in Newtown, Conn. last week that she would "insist that we cannot have a bill leave the station that still has that ban in it."

And while there's almost zero chance Republicans won't move forward on anything, Democrats aren't backing away from their push to draw attention to the topic.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.), whose district covers Newtown, introduced an amendment on Wednesday to strip the stipulation from the omnibus, which the GOP-dominated House Rules Committee will likely strike down.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week that she would “insist that we cannot have a bill leave the station that still has that ban in it.” (Andrew Harnik/AP)

"Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School three years ago, we have lost over 90,000 Americans to gun violence. This is a manmade crisis that needs to be treated as the public health epidemic it has become," said Esty in a statement.

"There's no reason to continue including language in the federal spending bill to prohibit the CDC and NIH from studying the causes or effects of gun violence on public health. This language has prohibited our country from being well informed on public policy measures that effectively save lives. We should not silence our nation's researchers. This ban needs to end now."

Democrats say they're furious that current Republicans aren't willing to listen to the amendment's original author, though many say they're still weighing the omnibus as a whole before they decide how to vote — taking into account other portions including the reauthorization of the Zadroga Act for 9/11 survivors and keeping the government funded.

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"I am extremely disappointed that the omnibus includes a Republican rider that denies the CDC the ability to compile data and information so we can figure out how to most effectively stop gun violence and protect the American people. While this bill is far from perfect, I am pleased that after months of pushing we have finally secured critical funding for the first responders who risked their lives and their health on September 11th — our heroes deserve a government that works for them, not against them," Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.) said in a statement.

House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) office responded to a request to explain the rationale for including the prohibition by pointing the Daily News to the House Rules Committee. A spokeswoman there said the committee would weigh in once it decides which amendments will be allowed on the omnibus, and which won't.